International
Jacky Naegelen / Reuters / Landov
Its Twitter avatar is a cartoon of a spread-eagled woman graphically birthing a shiny newborn, with the title “The real story of the baby Jesus” emblazoned in French. And it began Wednesday by tweeting a cartoon of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant with the note “Best wishes, in fact.”
Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French magazine whose offices were attacked Wednesday, has a long history of provocative cartoons stoking the ire of religious groups, politicians and society at large. It has turned its incisive pen on everything from French child care policies to right-wing politicians.
The left-leaning magazine and its staff have been the focus of extremist anger for years, due in large part to its portrayal of religious figures. At least four cartoonists were among the 12 dead in Wednesday’s shooting rampage. Stéphane Charbonnier, its now deceased editor-in-chief, was on an Al-Qaeda most-wanted list and reportedly lived under police protection.
The attack was not the first directed at the magazine’s offices.
In November 2011 the premises were firebombed after a special edition “guest-edited” by Muhammad was temporarily renamed “Charia Hebdo.” Its cover showed the prophet threatening readers with “a hundred lashes if you don’t die laughing.” Charlie Hebdo’s website was hacked in the reaction to the issue.
Not one to back down from a fight, the magazine responded by publishing a cartoon of a Muslim man kissing one of its male journalists on the cover.
A year after a Danish newspaper ran 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad that caused worldwide riots and threats in 2005, Charlie Hebdo republished them under the headline “Muhammad overwhelmed by fundamentalists.”
The magazine came under criticism by then-President Jacques Chirac, and French Islamic groups took the publication to court, accusing it of inciting hatred. The editor at the time was acquitted, and the court ruled the cartoons were protected by freedom of expression laws and attacked not Islam but fundamentalists.
“We treat the news like journalists. Some use cameras. Some use computers. For us, it’s a paper and a pencil,” a cartoonist who went by the name Luz told The Associated Press in 2012. “A pencil is not a weapon. It’s just a means of expression.”
For all its criticism of Islamic extremism, Charlie Hebdo was an equal-opportunity offender. “Police would be shown holding the dripping heads of immigrants; there would be masturbating nuns, popes wearing condoms — anything to make a point,” the BBC reported.
The magazine came about after its predecessor Hara-Kiri was banned in 1970 for mocking the death of former President Charles de Gaulle, which occurred about the same time a fire at a nightclub killed more than 100 people. It ran an issue with the cover line “Tragic dance at Colombey [de Gaulle’s home] — one dead.” The magazine’s journalists responded to the ban by creating a new magazine: Charlie Hebdo.
“The idea is that they were fighting against extremism, all kinds of extremism, all kinds of groups,” French journalist Mathilde Boussion told Al Jazeera. “They were fighting with the pen, and they were killed for that.”
Stéphane Charbonnier, who was killed in the Paris attack, spoke to Al Jazeera in 2012 about his satirical magazine
At least 12 are killed, including two police officers in attack on offices of Charlie Hebdo
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